The one major flop of Curtis's career, The Boat That Rocked ('Pirate Radio' across the Pond) was a $36 million disappointment made all the more stinging by its closeness to its writer-director's heart. A lifelong lover of music, his affectionate tribute to the nautical DJs of the Swinging Sixties might have struck a chord in the era of Cool Britannia, but a credit-crunched world took one look at its paisley-clad cast of Hendrix-loving pranksters and went to see Paranormal Activity instead. "There's a core audience brought up on the Four Weddings, the Notting Hills, the Bridget movies, the Love Actuallys, and they want more of that," says producer Tim Bevan. The Working Title head, a man who knows the Curtis sweet spot better than any, also attributes it to hippie-phobia. "The audience maybe didn't want a '60s music movie."